Reflections on technological evolution in 3 eras, 2 generations and 1 Customs

Many articles have been written about Customs and its history from its conception and foundation, to its model of excise duty in ancient times and more recently the collection of taxes, on how it has been changing since the independence movements of the Central American region, the industrial revolution of both merchandise and textiles, the years of the post-World War II and the resurgence of the economy taking as a starting point the year 1950, so, as a brief economic introduction established in the study of the World Economic History of 1950-1990 by Abraham Cabrera (1), we have the following events:

• The wonderful years of capitalism, from 1950 to 1960.
• The consolidation of the dollar as a currency, from 1960 to 1970.
• Economic crises in the US and Latin America and the rise of Asia, 1970-1980.
• US stagflation and Latin America's foreign debt problems, 1980-1990.
• The restructuring of capitalism, from 1990 onwards.

Specifically, we can name three eras of Customs after 1990 and its restructuring and technological path up to the present time. This view shows how the technological development of the customs service has been until today in the following three eras and two generations.

Customs Lieutenant. 1994-2004

To have a little background, "lieutenant" It indicates a person who has the authority and power to act as another person in a position or job. This era is framed within the centralized customs control in the figure of the Customs Administrator, deployed in each of the country's customs offices; they were colloquially referred to as bastions with their own customs procedures, subject to the paper era. The generations of this process know that the customs circuit consisted of the following:

1. Colored papers from different Ministries with handwritten signatures, date stamps and specifications that were attached to the documentation to be presented at customs.
2. The Customs Policy was the standard paper used by customs; it was twice the size of legal paper and consisted of information and calculations previously made by the assistants, based on the known regimes, tariff codes and regional treaties; it was filled out with pen or typewriter ink.
3. The customs officers were from the region where the customs office was located, that is, they were personnel hired by area; therefore, they knew the specific law of that customs area.
4. Customs Administrators were, in themselves, the grantors of customs guarantees; as part of their customs experience, they evaluated the quality and quantity of the customs operations to be processed and created their own control processes.
5. The Civil Service Assistant had to physically go to the processing Customs, complying with points 1 and 2 and adhering to points 3 and 4.
6. The knowledge of both the Customs Officer and the Civil Service Assistant was empirical, based on their experience and geographical location.

By having these 6 points, we can see how customs controls were established on the basis of paper documents, signatures, stamps, adding the laws of the region active at that time, laws that before the time of the Internet were “Signed bulletins” which were then distributed by geographic area. That is to say, the customs bulletins that were between El Salvador and Guatemala were different from those of El Salvador and Honduras, so one only had knowledge of them if one visited these border points and their fiscal precincts. Also, procedurally, something that characterizes this era is that each customs had its own procedure, excuse the redundancy. And here we go to the empirical part of both the official and the assistant; their knowledge was transferred between the two, in this way: physical visits to the place, knowledge of the procedure established in that fiscal precinct and the only way to know the process was by trial and error, that is to say, -as it is colloquially known- "have processed the goods at said customs office." This period is characterized by a strange bureaucratic order that was anchored to its customs procedure; this bureaucratic order created the security that all the steps required for the import or export of goods had been completed and thus guaranteed that the state received the taxes established by the customs laws of the region, which were going to begin to grow even more due to globalization.

At the end of the 90s, the computing boom began. We went from typewriters to computerized systems that few understood, but their adoption was not optional but rather necessary to change the way information was received. From 1999 to 2004, customs began to change the reception of data through a server with information technology. MS DOS (2) -I can compare it to when architects went from using big plans to using AUTOCAD(3)-, then comes the thought that all the necessary information can be entered from the computer itself and when it is presented at Customs the data will be received via a server. The world of letters and numbers via the computer begins.

Inert Satellite Customs. 2004-2019

By creating its first customs satellite system in MSDOS Much of the methodology of the first period is maintained; the compilation of paperwork is the same, except that the numbers of the customs documents are added to the famous page of “Attached Documents” digitally, that is, the checklist of documents needed for the import or export process. Customs, at this time, already provides a small guide of what is needed, also based on the same principles, tariff headings, rules of origin and international treaties are beginning to be implemented that manage to modify the way taxes are received from country to country. We thus enter the era of bulletins or information that is a little more accessible to everyone through a web page, which can be accessed from the computer itself. The customs procedure changes, the paper era remains and the customs circuit at this time consists of the following:

1. A satellite data reception system was switched to MSDOS, but I only received text, letters and numbers.
2. The navigation of this customs system was not very intuitive, since it was designed with a checklist to be followed; this came to replace the bureaucratic order that was carried out at the customs where the procedure was to be carried out, generating compliance with this checklist a new customs control and was validated by an electronic signature in its first evolutionary phase from paper.
3. Data reception became inert, meaning that each Customs office received its centralized information, customs officials were no longer only from the region and began to be mobilized to all customs posts, requiring an expansion of knowledge, not only of the area but also an even more globalized knowledge.
4. This reception of data made the Customs Administrator evolve to accept microprocesses, because the rectification of the same could now be done in the system.
5. The Civil Service Auxiliary became more receptive to globalized information, due to the increase in operations that implied a more united world in the consumption of goods. For its part, couplings began in logistics inventory systems in MSDOS that would be harmonized with the customs system, in order to process the checklist without any setbacks.
6. Customs procedures were changed to a satellite system circuit, so, in addition to empirical knowledge of laws and processes, a mechanism for knowledge of customs systems based on international procedures was initiated.

As a country, we began to see what other countries were doing and began to import technological ideas. This era is marked by the creation of various satellite technological systems that meet the needs of customs control, which - since there are several - begin to absorb the processing flow of external users. Navigating through this space of systems can become a bit overwhelming during this time, which forces some assistants to become specialists in certain areas, including textiles, merchandise and the area of ​​imported vehicles, which begins to have exponential growth. For a time, these systems fulfill their function of receiving data and classifying it, but they create various paths to endless processes, modifying paths that do not converge or generate customs labyrinths, both for the external user and for the public official.

But it starts in the 2016-2019 A system for centralizing customs procedures, both for data and for documents in their image or scanned form, begins to operate. The main pushback is that all satellite systems implemented in this era have their processes anchored to the paper era and having a document certified in image creates a certain insecurity about its veracity in the customs official. However, the first interconnection with other entities that intervene in the customs process begins to evolve, which can validate -both to the external user and to Customs- that this document is true. For the first time in this era we are seeing the interconnection of systems, that is, systems that communicate with each other in a harmonious manner, finally beginning their coupling to the customs simplification law. (4)

Interconnected Organic Customs. 2019-2024

In this era (to better understand it) the two generations of customs officers converge, both for external users and for customs officials. There is the generation that has lived through the two previous eras and there is the generation that has grown up with their interconnected devices and wants to transfer this operation to their work area, in this era classified by the following customs procedure:

1. Customs systems were interconnected with institutions and new automated validations were created, both for external users and for customs officials.
2. Customs procedures written in stone moved into a phase of obsolescence and new procedures were created coupled with new technologies and satellite systems began to interconnect with each other, creating their own customs language.
3. Customs officials and external users began to interact between the two generations, they began to visualize the pros and cons of their times.
4. The Customs Administrator began to standardize its customs procedures, to be a more active part of the flow of international trade and began streamlining processes if its technological validations were fulfilled.
5. The Customs Civil Service Assistant began to harmonize with the existing technology in the logistics sector, from the geolocation of its merchandise to having greater control over the times of its customs clearance process, through the use of this technology.
6. Customs procedures were organically interconnected; thus, their hyper-specialization began, reaching a very deep and detailed level of customs procedures in a short time, due to the democratization of customs and technological information.

This era is characterized by the interconnection of satellite systems, forced to talk to each other, to communicate; the satellite system that does not have an interconnection process or whose path does not converge in a single customs system is ending its useful life and will be replaced by more intuitive programs. We are relying more on the information stored in a database and we see the future of a customs cloud anchored to a single customs processing system.

The role of the development of this interconnection remains in the minds of customs programmers, who automate the checklists of past times, both from the paper era and from the inertia of data reception. And we move on to the next phase of automation and learning of the BIG DATA (4). In this part, it is enough to understand the current customs process, deconstruct and homogenize it into a single processing method for a single window, in order to see a new future, a new centralized, easy and intuitive processing, without losing customs control.

This era is still in its heyday; the external user becomes an international trade advisor with all the logistics technologies at his disposal; a new player enters the customs developers, limiting the error factor by means of the assistance of current technology to the customs process. Thus we return to the empirical symbiosis of the first customs era, where the Civil Service Auxiliary, upon completing his checklist in the technological validation process, becomes the customs official who is confident that he processes in a homogeneous and interconnected manner thanks to the technological bridge that continues to be built.

The question remains: Can we evolve after 3 eras, the 2 generations for 1 Customs? The answer should not only be a simple Yes o No, It has to be a call to question how to improve every customs process you encounter and resist processes that are not going to evolve with us. In view of this, it is encouraged to have confidence that the technology to come will evolve these processes - much more than with our current knowledge - towards a coexistence and interconnection even greater; this will happen if we build, together and in this era, the technological bridge for the next generation and for a single Customs.

1. CABRERA, Abraham Aparicio (2014). World Economic History 1950-1990.
2. MSDOS. MS-DOS (an acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System or Microsoft DOS) was the most popular member of Microsoft's DOS family of operating systems, and the primary operating system for IBM PC-compatible personal computers in the 1980s and mid-1990s.
3. AUTOCAD. The name AutoCAD is a creation of the Autodesk company, where Auto refers to the company and CAD to computer-aided design (Computer-Aided Design), having its first appearance in 1982 [1] and the latest version is v6.5.0.Arquitectura Arkinetia. «Arquitectura Arkinetia-The history of the History of AutoCAD –by Martín Ferrer». Archived from the original on February 19, 2016. Retrieved November 16, 2015.
4. Customs Simplification Act. (2012) Decree No. 529 – Legislative Assembly of El Salvador.
5. BIG DATA. Big data, also known as massive data, data intelligence, large-scale data (from the English big data) is a term that refers to data sets so large and complex that they require non-traditional computer applications for data processing to handle them properly. «Big data and data intelligence, alternatives to big data». Retrieved April 11, 2017.

Luis Siguenza Menjivar

Graduate in Customs Economics from the Universidad Nueva San Salvador. Specialist in Continuous Improvement and Customs Processes, General Directorate of Customs of the Republic of El Salvador.

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